Sanity by Judy Colella (beginner reading books for adults .TXT) 📕

few minutes before trying to leave, but when I did, I found an orderly standing beside the door just outside who growled at me to get back to my room or he’d knock my teeth out.

“An hour or so later, I was taken to one of the isolation cells, placed in a straitjacket, and thrown in. They told me I was now an inmate of the asylum, that I’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and would spend the rest of my life there. The same night, they began dosing me with medications that made me incapable of speech, of coherent thought. I believe I did a great deal of drooling and moaning, something the orderlies found hysterically funny.

“In the days following, they began injecting me with various substances that caused pain – there seemed to be no other purpose for them. And then, when I had been in that state for slightly more than a year – I was twelve by then – the experiments began. They would strap me face-down on a cold metal table and without anesthesia, cut me open and jam syringes into my spine. I could feel things happening inside, but understood none of it.

"When they were done, they’d sew me up, put my pajama shirt back on – the same one, incidentally, I’d been wearing since the night my father died – and send me to the Common Room with the other inmates. That’s all we were at that point. Not patients, not residents. Prisoners. Inmates. They kept us medicated so we wouldn’t harm ourselves or each other, but I was able to think clearly enough to realize I had to stop taking the pills they dispensed throughout the day.

“I figured out how to do that after a while. It was ridiculously easy to pretend; all I had to do was mimic the behavior of the others, continue to act the way I remembered when I was drugged. Eventually, I eluded them temporarily, but no one seemed to care. So I’d wander the building, reacquainting myself with the way the floors were divided, where and what all the rooms were. They’d always catch me, though, and then I’d be subjected to those injections that were designed to torture the recipient. It felt like flames rushing through every vein. Once in a while they’d give me something that made it feel like all my nerves had been exposed and were being scrubbed with sandpaper. I began looking for places to hide, but until I finally found a good spot many years later, they continued to experiment on me.

“Sometimes my wanderings would take me past their offices, which they rarely closed, and I would see them doing things to some of the men that no one should ever do. During this time, I also came across the ward where they kept most of the women. They were strapped down, and upon seeing me there, the more coherent among them begged me to set them free.

"One woman asked me to end her life. It wasn’t until I happened upon a chart someone had left hanging from the foot of one of the beds that I understood why. From what I could tell by the notes, she was part of an experiment aimed at finding ways to chemically terminate pregnancies. I must have been around fourteen at that point, and knew enough about the reproduction process to realize the doctors were purposely getting these women with child solely for the purpose of carrying out this ungodly experiment. How tempted I was to release them all, but of course, they would just be rounded up again, maybe even punished for getting away.

“Before I could do anything at all, I heard footsteps approaching the ward and found a hiding spot in one of the unused cabinets. Three doctors and two orderlies came in…I will not tell you what they did. It was horrible. I watched for only a couple of minutes, and then had to close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears. Being stuck in that cabinet for nearly three hours was bad, but when the men left and I was able to leave, I found a logbook in the desk of the floor nurse – who for some reason wasn’t there at the time – that recorded their activity, how many of the woman had gotten pregnant from their attentions, and how they reacted to the different medications.

"Many of them, I learned, had immediately begun to hemorrhage in the wake of the fetus dying, and would be left to bleed to death. They had no interest in saving their lives. So many other women were in residence there, or were being admitted constantly, keeping these victims alive was unnecessary. They kept a record of how many of them had survived this treatment, too. Those who did were kept for further experimentation until they died.

“Everyone subjected to experimentation was much older than I, of course. They died horribly and in alarming numbers. The orderlies would take their bodies and toss them into the furnaces in the south basement. I couldn’t say why I felt the need to keep following people and watching all these things happen, but perhaps it was my way of handling the bizarre life I had been forced to lead. Not knowing what was going on frightened me more, I think.

“One day I noticed that the doctors had begun to change; their hair was getting grey, their faces more lined. New doctors began to appear, but these, like the original group, engaged in the same horrendous practices. I was introduced to them as their most promising test subject for what they called their centerpiece project, the one that would define and justify all they’d been doing. How lucky I am, I remembered thinking – sarcastically, of course. If I thought I’d be treated any better by the incoming lot, I was badly mistaken. New medications, new experimental drugs, were being formulated all the time, and I had the privilege of being the lab animal on which to test the ones that pertained to my purpose, as well as a few that weren’t.

“My least favorite was Thorazine, and I was thrilled when it was taken off the list of viable drugs for treating mental disorders. I hated what it did to me. Adequately pretending I’d taken it when I didn’t was impossible. Somehow, they always knew with that one, and would force it down my throat to make sure I’d swallowed it.

“Many years passed like this, my only feeling of satisfaction coming from seeing the doctors age, retire, die, while I continued to be young and yes, weakened by all the drugs and testing, but stronger than they’d ever be.”

Max decided to end with that. The next terrible milestone in the story was the day he was told the consequences of his prolonged youth, and he wasn’t ready to inform Anna about that yet. “I’m tired now.” He got up, leaned down and kissed her gently on the mouth, and headed back to The Pavilion, not waiting for her to join him. Tonight, she’d said. Well, he’d find out what she meant by that, he supposed. Right now, though, he desperately needed a hot shower.

A pity they didn’t have lye soap any more. His need to scrub off the filth that spawned his narrative was intense, and he didn’t think that the perfume-infused bar they used these days would be adequate.

VI

Elyse read the letter again, hardly able to believe her good fortune. It told her that the tissue samples she’d requested would be coming by separate post, and should be arriving within the week. All that remained now was to obtain a sample directly from Max.

She’d been listening to the recordings of his story, and until it became obvious that he and Anna had begun engaging in far more than talk, she’d been very pleased with what she’d been hearing. But then Anna had begged Max to make love to her, and the sounds that followed, well, she’d had to erase them, of course. Worse than playing a porno flick with the picture off, the vocalizations of their pleasure were at the same time teasing her libido and embarrassing her sense of ethics. Delete, delete, well, listen once more…delete.

After that first discovery of their heated trysts, she’d confronted the girl, telling her how dangerous her behavior could be to Max’s mental state. Anna had laughed in her face.

“Your mental state, you mean. When’s the last time you got laid, Dr. Franco?”

Refusing to get drawn into a defensive stance and ignoring the rudeness, Elyse had merely shaken her head and told the young lady to be careful. Max may appear stable, but whether or not his story was legitimate, its implications defined a psyche that had to be fragile at best. “Besides, I can’t stop you, but I also don’t need to listen to it.”

Anna had only grinned, plucked the recorder away from her, and flounced out.

“Great.” Elyse felt helpless – she needed to hear that story, to hear the way he told it, the terms he used, the ease with which he used them. All of it meant something. All of it would mean even more should there be a DNA match.

By the time Anna came by with the next set of recordings, the samples would have arrived. Was she happy that Max was able to have what seemed like a good relationship with someone? Of course she was. But what if the tests proved him to be as old as he said he was? What would that mean? How long was he supposed to live? Ah, too many questions for now.

She picked up the phone and called The Pavilion to request that one of the physicians obtain a tissue sample from Mr. Colson.

Who, if he was telling the truth, had just brought “robbing the cradle” to new and epic heights.

She refused to tell him how she was doing it. Said if he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell anyone, and she’d have a better chance of continuing to get away with it. He accepted her premise with good grace, openly delighted that she was there at all. In his room. In his bed. Every night now for nearly a week. They fulfilled their need for what was so freely and mutually given.

Max had never dreamed he’d have this kind of relationship – any kind of relationship – with someone who wasn’t manic, or dirty, or likely to murder him for no explainable reason. He had therefore avoided all liaisons, despite the availability to indulge, despite the encouragement of the filthy-minded doctors who wanted to watch him “perform” with one or more of the other inmates, male or female. He refused by disappearing. Over the years he’d become extraordinarily adept at making himself scarce, at being in the right place at the right time to overhear plans they had for him and hiding before they could make him do something sickening.

Letting down his emotional walls a little, he admitted to Anna that she was his first, that before her, he’d never experienced this kind of contact.

“I took your virginity?” she asked, her grey-blue eyes luminous in moonshard